"I felt so fine I didn't once overanalyze the perfect emotion, budding inside. The one I'd always feared most."

"Not even Carol knows firsthand how it feels to be hurt in such a way by someone who's supposed to protect you."

"God is love," she said. "And he respects love, whether it's between a parents, and child, a man and woman, or friends. I don't think he cares about religion one little bit. Live your life right. Love with all your heart. Don't hurt others, and help those in need. That is all you need to know. And don't worry about heaven. If it exists, you'll be welcome."

"Fireworks. Snowflakes. Sunstroke and frostbite. It was all that I could ask for and completely unexpected. I expected demands. He gifted me with tenderness. I expected ego. He let me experiment. I expected disrespect. He called me beautiful. I expected him to expect perfection. He taught me all I needed to know."

"What's the point of being a hero when everyone thinks you're a villain?"

"Now that I have opened that bottle of memories they're pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet."

"HOW do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, soWHYpush to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree isWHERE you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway,WHENdid creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the personWHOlives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you -WHATis perfect."

"Sometimes,you don't wake up.But if you happento, you know thingswill never bethe same."

"In fact, since the accident, Mom doesn't love anyone. She is marble. Beautiful. Frigid. Easily stained by her family. What's left of us anyway. We are corpses.At first, we sought rebirth. But resurrection devoid of her love has made us zombies. We get up every morning, skip breakfast, hurry off to work or school. For in those other places, we are more at home.And sometimes we stagger beneath the weight of grief, the immensity of aloneness."

"In a woman's womb.another chance.to make the world better."

"But, though I was very much in lust with him, I knew from the start we were nothing like "forever." Maybe because forever is such a scary place."

"Anger is easier than forgiveness."

"Parenting should be a passion, not a part-time pursuit."

"What good would it do toshutter your windows, neverdream of rainbows or find hopein promises? Why choose to walk awayrather than hold your groundand fight for love?"

"What I don't like is what it sometimes takes to win. Backstabbing. Manipulation. Out-and-out bribery once in a while, and not always the monetary kind."

"Real love finds you once, if you're lucky."

"Nonfiction speaks to the head. Fiction speaks to the heart. Poetry speaks to the soul. It's the essence of beauty. The essence of pain. It pleases the eye and the ear."

"You were a summer gift, one I'll always treasure. You were a dream I never wanted to wake up from. You opened my eyes to things I'll never really see. You're the best thing that will ever happen to me."

"Babies aren't born cruel or filled with sick desire. Evil is not intrinsic. It's fashioned."

"Girls get Screwed. Not that kind of screwed, what I mean is, they're always on the short end of things. The way things work, how guys feel great, but make girls feel cheap for doing exactly what they beg for."

"Christmas is far and away my favorite holiday. I love everything about it, from the event that inspired it, hoping for a white one, to wrapping presents. But mostly I love having family and friends gathered, and sharing traditions."

"The problem with falling in love is falling back out of it again, usually because you've fallen in love with a lie. That happens as often as not."

"I nod, because I do understand. I'm just not sure how to go about divorcing myself from the evil I've already accepted."

"In control. Out of control. Sometimes they're the same thing. The trick is knowing it's okay to feel out of control once in a while, as long as you're sure you can regain the upper hand when you absolutely need to."

"Librarians were like guardian angels, with graying hair and beady eyes, magnified through reading glasses, and always read to recommend new literary windows to gaze through."

"Back turned, you don't have to look at what you've left behind. And the person who first turned their back on you can't watch you break down and cry. Never allow an enemy to see weakness in you."

"DisappointmentCan do a couple things.It can drop you into a giantsucking sinkhole ofdepression,a place you have to fightto climb out of. Or itcan trigger an epicmaniato overcome the oddsand transform failureinto success. Say youswingas high as the chains willtake you because you seekthe thrill of flight, and on theup-kick, you lose your seat.Injury is likely. But if youworry about fallingdown,and never chance "up,"the sky will remainforever out of reach."

"A daughter is a rainbow - a curve of light through scattered mist that lifts the spirit with her prismatic presence. Is a shadow - a reminder of something brilliant ducking out of sight, too easily drawn away. She is an aria, swelling within the concern chamber, an echo reverberating across a miniature sea. She is a secret, whispered, a hint of what we cannot know until it finds us. She is a sliver of her father, a shard of her mother. A daughter is a promise, kept."

"It is hard to believe that something that seems so permanent was once so different. Change. I guess that really is one thing you can count on..."

"What we strive for, ultimately, is love. You won't find real love because you're beautiful on the outside. It is drawn to inner beauty. Spend your energy crafting that, and you will know true love."

"Things happenedwhen you were little. Things youdon't remember now, and don't wantto. But they need to escape,need to worm their way outof that dark place in your brainwhere you keep them stashed."

"A word to the unwise.Torch every book.Char every page.Burn every word to ash.Ideas are incombustible.And therein lies your real fear."

"Love is more than blind. It's brain-dead."

"In my limited realm of experience, beginnings led to endings."

"It's probably weird to think about an addiction like it's a sentient being, but that's how it feels. Like it's something living inside you. Something you can't get rid of because killing it means killing you."

"Forever has no meaning when you're living in the moment. I wasn't ready for that moment to end."

"A chatWith the Grim Reapershould be enough to scareaway any thought of relapse.Wish it were that easy,but not even days conversingwith death can disintegratethe claws of addiction."

"It's not easy to get close to anyone.... Everyone's afraid of everybody else.... maybe because we're all afraid of ourselves."

"It's probably weird to think about an addiction like it's a sentient being, but that's how it feels. Like it's something living inside you. Something you can't get rid of because killing it means killing you. I can't really understand addictions to drugs or alcohol. Things that control you. But an eating disorder is an addiction you control. Wait, is that paradoxical? I prefer to believe not."

"There's a lesson here, and that is I have to find happiness inside myself before I try to partner again."

"Taking no chances means wasting your dreams.."

"Can a dream be wrong? Aren't dreams God's way of telling you things?"

"God wasn't love, couldn't be love. Because for me, love was a corpse."

"For short term relaxation, I take a hot tub. It's my best way to unblock writers' block, too. For a bit longer relaxation, I enjoy camping. Just being in the wilderness, with no phones or computers or anything I have to do really refreshes my spirit."

"I wonder how long it would take him to realize I'm right as sin - it's the rest of the world that's wrong. I'm not even sure how I qualify for admission to Aspen Springs. Does wanting to die equal losing your mind?"

"LightThat's how I feel-like the winter-fringedbreeze might scoopme up into its wings,flyaway with me trappedin its feathered embrace.I am a snowflake.A wisp of eiderdown,liberatedfrom gravity. My bodyis light. Ephemeral.My head is light.I want to swaybeneaththe weight of air,dizzy with thought.Light filters throughmy closed eyelids.The sun,chasing shadows,tells me I'm notafloat in dreams."

"Perfection is a ridiculous goal because there is no such thing. Real beauty is what you are inside."

"GhostsTake shape under moonlight,materialize in dreams.Shadows. Silhouettesof what is no more. Butghosts don'tbother me. The day bringsbigger things to worry aboutthan flimsy remains ofyesterday. No, spooks don'tscare me.Gauzy apparitions mightprank your psyche oragitate your nightmares,but lackingflesh and bloodthey are powerlessto hurt you-cannot hopeto inflict the kind of damagethat real, livepeople do."

"Anger is a valid emotion. It's only bad when it takes control and makes you do things you don't want to do."

"Do you ever dangle your toes over the precipice, dare the cliff to crumble, defy the frozen deity to suffer the sun, thaw feather and bone, take wing to fly you home?"